The battle of MLK Hospital in the Watts / Willowbrook area of deepest darkest LA County has taken another interesting, if incomprehensible turn. This time Maxine Waters and Mervyn Dymally have called for the resignation of the head of the County Health Department. This as a background for the latest scandal to hit the papers which was that a heart patient died because a nurse muted the volume on the (apparently annoying) life support system, so that when he crashed, nobody knew.
Pops used to be deep into those politics during the 70s and 80s when he was a Special Assistant to the Chief. That's how we met Maxine and a host of other influentials back in the day. I haven't heard him weigh in on the trauma facing King, but the more people talk about it the more confused I get.
Connie Rice, who is often the most sensible black voice in LA County seems to see this from the money angle and says that there is nothing to be gained from fingerpointing. Somebody needs to find a lot of money and quick. I had no idea that this might have been a money problem, but evidently the Trauma Unit (separate from the ER) burns through many millions and is probably the most expensive part of the hospital. Keeping it running sucks up precious resources.
Joe Hicks on the other hand accuses (unnamed politicians) of racial grandstanding and misleading the community into purposeless protests.
Dymally, who must be 170 years old, and was Lt. Governor when I was in high school, protests that the King Drew Medical school followed all the recommendations made when people were working through the reform process and was able to pass muster. But the appointment of this cat Garthwaite has only made the situation go from bad to worse.
The tone of the discussion is tense and in order to make concessions that the County Board of Supervisors is partly to blame, the narrative heads in the direction that says King's adminstration was always insular and racially chauvinistic 'for 30 years'.
This is going to get uglier before it gets any clearer, but I do see Rice's point.
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